Universities are taking steps to try to reassure overseas students that foreigners are welcome on their campuses. Applications to US colleges from abroad have declined of late. Many are now trying to combat the concerns and fears about harassment, and that the US is becoming less welcoming to those from overseas in the wake of the tougher immigration policies of President Donald Trump.
The admissions director at Iowa State University, Katharine Johnson Suski, says that overseas students are saying they are worried about racism and discrimination, and no longer feel safe in the US, making it important for the university to focus marketing efforts on assuaging some of those fears.
International students have given a financial boost to many universities and colleges in recent years, and tend to be charged higher rates of tuition than is the case with their in-state American counterparts. Many such schools have started to become dependent on the revenue they receive from their overseas students, enrolment of whom has increased over the course of the last ten years, federal data suggests.
But, enrolment figures at many schools are predicted to decline next fall, with almost 50 percent of the 25 biggest public universities in the US experiencing a drop, or stagnation, of overseas undergraduate applications since 2016, according to information given to the Associated Press by colleges. Many blame the decline in applications on the anti-immigration rhetoric spouted by Trump.